


A Night on the Road

by Settiai



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, One Shot, Pre-Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Twitter Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25512961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settiai/pseuds/Settiai
Summary: It had been four days since they'd escaped from that jail cell, and Caleb hadn't left her yet. She was more than a little surprised by that.
Relationships: Nott | Veth Brenatto & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 8
Kudos: 71





	A Night on the Road

Veth shivered as another cold breeze blew through the makeshift camp that she and Caleb had set up in a thicket well off the road. No, not Veth, not anymore, she was Nott and she needed to remember that whether she wanted to or not.

Not Veth. Not a halfling. Just... Nott. She was Nott. Nott the Brave. A goblin.

Nott closed her eyes and pulled her cloak closer around her. It was tattered and torn, with barely even enough cloth remaining to actually call it a cloak. It was the best that she had, though, so she had to make due.

Just like she’d been doing ever since she’d woken up coughing up water in a body that wasn’t hers.

“Come here,” Caleb said quietly, his voice coming from several feet away where he’d curled up to sleep for the night. “It will be warmer out of the wind.”

Nott opened her eyes and glanced his way. He’d made his bed beside the remains of a fallen tree. It wasn’t particularly large, and she doubted it blocked the wind entirely, but it probably would be better than nothing.

But, still.

“Are you sure?” Nott asked, her voice a bit more tentative than she’d meant for it to come out.

There was a part of her that was surprised that Caleb hadn’t gone his separate way yet. She’d expected it, back when they first escaped from that jail cell four nights ago now. They hadn’t known each other all that well, not really, and she was pretty sure he’d trusted her about as much as she’d trusted him. They’d worked together to escape because it benefited them both, but she’d been sure that he would split as soon as possible.

Except here they were, four days later, and he was still there. And Nott couldn’t for the life of her figure out why.

Caleb let out a huff that wasn’t quite a laugh, but it sounded like it might have been one once upon a time. “I would not have offered if I wasn’t sure,” he said. “Come on, you must be freezing. We need to get you a better cloak.”

There was a thousand and one things that Nott could have said to that. That it wasn’t like she wanted to have a cloak that was falling apart, that was more scrap cloth than clothing. That he was one to talk, considering the state of his own coat. That it wasn’t _that_ cold, not yet. It might not be all that comfortable, but she wasn’t at any risk of freezing to death.

But she couldn’t quite get past the fact that he’d said “we.”

Nott pushed herself to her feet and made her way over to where Caleb was. He’d moved a foot or so away from the log resting beside him, and he patted the ground between him and it. “Here,” he said. “This will be warmer for you.”

She bit her lip, flinching slightly as one of her sharper-than-they-were-supposed-to-be teeth cut through the soft skin. Then, without letting herself think about the dozens of reasons it was probably a bad idea to trust this human man who she knew almost nothing about, she dropped down onto the empty spot of ground he’d gestured towards and curled up into as small of a ball as she could.

“Goodnight, Mr. Caleb,” she said quietly, her words barely audible with the wind blowing through the thicket.

There was a long pause. “Goodnight, Nott.”

*

Nott woke up feeling surprisingly warm. Warmer than she’d been in ages, not since...

... and she quickly cut off that line of thought as Yeza and Luc’s faces flashed in her mind. It was safer not to think about what she’d lost. It made it hurt less.

But that didn’t change the fact that she was _warm_.

Nott slowly opened her eyes, blinking away the golden light streaming through the trees from the slowly rising sun. It was still early. The sun was only beginning to rise on the horizon, and it hadn’t yet had a chance to really warm up the air.

It took her a second to realize that something was draped over her.

She reached up to touch the familiar coat that was wrapped around her like a blanket. Then she shifted, slowly and carefully, so that she could look towards Caleb.

Caleb was still asleep, curled up just behind her. He was closer than he’d been when she’d fallen asleep, not quite touching her but so close that it wouldn’t have taken more than a tiny shift in the night for them to be wrapped around each other. She didn’t think it was intentional. He’d just been cold, and his body had instinctively realized that she was a source of warmth.

Especially since he’d given her his coat.

Nott sat up, pulling the rather threadbare coat more tightly around her. It didn’t smell all that great, now that she was awake and aware of it, the scents of body odor and smoke and grease and who knew what else all mixing together into something that was honestly a bit noxious. She suspected that she probably smelled just as foul, though, so who was she to talk?

Caleb shifted slightly, a quiet murmur slipping from between his lips, and she took a moment to really look at him. He looked younger than he usually did, the worry lines on his face smoothed somewhat in sleep, and for the first time she wondered just how old he was. His late 20s, maybe? Early 30s? He couldn’t be that much older than her now that she was really looking at him.

A cool breeze blew past, and Nott instinctively pulled his coat even closer around her. Then she froze, her eyes drawn to him as he shivered slightly.

She almost bit her lip again, a nervous habit that she’d had as long as she could remember, but she stopped at the last second when she remembered just how different her teeth were now. Instead she simply shrugged out of the coat, gently placing it down on top of Caleb.

He shifted in place again, his brow furrowing, and Nott flinched at the thought that she’d unintentionally woken him up. Then his face smoothed back out, and he burrowed a bit deeper under the coat that she’d just given him back.

Nott couldn’t help but smile just a little.

“We.” That’s what Caleb had said the night before. Not “me” or “you,” but “we.”

She could get used to that.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Twitter. (https://twitter.com/settiai)


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